


Angel’s Glow

by labellelunaclaire



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (but also gross tbh), Alcohol, American Civil War, Angel Healing, F/F, Miracles, Other, She/Her Pronouns for Michael (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), nature is rad, war is gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labellelunaclaire/pseuds/labellelunaclaire
Summary: “Who do you think you are?” a droning voice asked, too loud over the post-battle stillness. “Raphael?”“Hardly,” she responded to the demon’s goading question in sincerity. “Raphael could do much more to heal these poor children, if she were here.”Michael is helping heal soliders after the Battle of Shiloh. But where there is war, there are also flies.
Relationships: Beelzebub/Michael (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Angel’s Glow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hyenateeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenateeth/gifts).



> This idea came to me while listening to the recent Sawbones episode on Angel’s Glow, a phenomenon during the Battle of Shiloh where some solders’ wounds appeared to glow pale blue and they seemed to get better faster. They called this “Angel’s Glow”, as they didn’t have any explanation for what was happening and assumed it must be divine in origin. Definitely go listen to the episode if you want to learn more (and then listen to all of the other Sawbones episodes, because it’s the best podcast out there).

The cool night washed over Michael as she walked through the remains of the battle.

Everything about this particular war disgusted her to her very core. And this battle was worse than the others. She looked out over the field, at the bodies of young men who lay, dead or dying, in the marsh. Boys, brothers, fighting for the rights of rich men to claim ownership of human beings.

She couldn’t stop herself from wondering sometimes if free will had been a mistake.  _ Surely _ She couldn’t have intended  _ this _ to happen.

But it wasn’t Michael’s place to doubt or question.

They called this place Shiloh, but there was no peace or tranquility to be found here. Just the moaning and keening of injured boys, the shuffle of medics trying to administer aid where they could, and the stench of decaying flesh.

Michael was all too familiar with the aftermath of battle.

A surprise attack.  _ Disgusting. _

She was no healer, but soldiers were  _ her’s.  _ And disgusted as she was by the reason behind the war and the unsportsmanlike nature of this particular battle, she was the Archangel Michael, and this was her purview.

The humans had been given everything they needed by Her. They were just so painfully slow at sorting it out.

The conditions were nearly right, though. The night air was certainly cool enough. The wet ground sapped away the warmth from the boys laying upon it, wounded. It was hardly a miracle at all, she reasoned as she walked the battlefield, unknown and unnoticed, and introduced the tiny creatures into the wounds of soldiers.

Not all of them. Just the ones on the edge, who could use a little boost.

The nematodes, with their guts full of living, glowing antibiotics, would help keep the harmful bacteria at bay until they could be seen by a doctor.

“Who do you think you are?” a droning voice asked, too loud over the post-battle stillness. “Raphael?”

Michael turned and met eyes with the owner of the voice. Scrawny frame, pallid face covered in pustules and framed with wiry black hair, dressed in the drab grays of the Confederates, but with a blood red sash across their breast and a metal at their throat.

Beelzebub, Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies.

She should have known she would run into them here. Where war went, so, too, went the flies.

“Hardly,” she responded to the demon’s goading question in sincerity. “Raphael could do much more to heal these poor children, if she were here.”

“Careful, Michael,” the demon warned, though their monotone voice sounded almost…  _ playful. _ “Envy is one of our’szzz.”

“Angels don’t  _ envy,”  _ she said with a roll of her eyes. “We each have our own strengths. We of the Holy Host are in perfect balance.”

“Sure,” they deadpanned, and they lifted a nearly full bottle of amber liquid to their pale, chapped lips and took a messy swig. “Whiskey?” they asked, holding the bottle out for her to take as they wiped their mouth with the back of their other hand.

“Where did you get that?” Michael asked skeptically.

Beelzebub shrugged and a small plume of flies took flight off their shoulders. “Surgeon's tent,” they said nonchalantly, taking another drink from the bottle.

Michael’s eyes went wide. “They need that,” she told the demon, wincing at the thought of the barbaric state of medicine in this day and age. Whiskey was the only relief some of the injured might hope for while the doctor sawed through their bones.

“Relax, I took it from the Confederate szzzide,” they said easily, as if that made it any better. They offered up the bottle again. “Whether you drink it or not, I’m not giving it back.”

Michael stared at the bottle for a long moment, considering her options. Clearly, this was a temptation. If she gave in, the Prince of Hell won, giving them eternal bragging rights Below. On the other hand, a temporary truce between two opposing generals could yield important information for their own war to come. The Great Plan was coming to pass very soon. They barely had a century and a half before this little planet was to be reduced to ash and dust in order to serve as the battlefield in the Heavenly War.

She weighed her options.

And took the bottle from the demon’s waiting hand.

The corner of Beelzebub’s lips twitched upwards into a satisfied little smirk. Michael rolled her eyes in response and took a long, deep swallow, letting the whiskey’s fiery burn warm her from the inside out before handing the bottle back.

An angel and a demon drinking together. This  _ must  _ be a first.

Beelzebub took another sloppy drink. Michael watched as the beads of alcohol slipped through their lips and raced down their chin.

“Must you be such a slob?” Michael scolded, unable to take her eyes from the drips clinging to the demon’s skin. 

_ “Cleanliness is close to godliness,”  _ they mocked in a singsong voice, and seemed to try to slosh even more whiskey down their face with their next pull from the bottle.

Michael rolled her eyes again and started walking through the field. Beelzebub fell in step beside her, offering up the bottle again, which she took gratefully. Alcohol really  _ was _ just what she needed right now. Call it a vice, call it a sin, it didn’t matter. She was an archangel, and if she wanted a swig of whiskey offered by a demon, she would have the damned whiskey.

They walked near a young wounded soldier who groaned in pain and shook violently with the cold and shock. His uniform was stained with blood and mud.

Michael snapped her fingers, and within moments, a faint bluish glow emanated from his weeping wounds.

“That’s cheating,” Beelzebub said, tilting their chin towards the boy.

“I’m not healing him directly,” Michael argued. “I’m just introducing nematodes. They feed on the insects that are attracted to the wounds, and the proteobacteria in their gut kills off any harmful bacteria that linger.”

“Firszzzt of all, rude,” Beelzebub said, snatching the bottle roughly from her hand and taking a drink. “Those flies are  _ mine. _ And szzzecond, how is the glowing  _ not _ cheating?”

They looked at her with those baleful corpse-like eyes, yet something in their expression spoke of… genuinely curiosity.

“I’m not making them glow,” Michael explained as the soldier quieted, noticing the pale light now coming from his wounds. “The proteobacteria are bioluminescent. They glow on their own.”

“How convenient,” Beelzebub muttered.

Michael shrugged. “I wasn’t a part of creature development. I just know that’s how it works.”

“Well, there’s far more of my flies than there are of your… glowing germs,” Beelzebub said lamely.

“Technically, your flies are helping them,” Michael smiled. “Grotesque as they are.”

Blue eyes blinked in surprise. “How is that?”

“The maggots eat what’s rotting, but leave behind the healthy, living flesh,” Michael told them, watching their blank expression carefully for any small tell. “They’re essentially cleaning the wounds for the doctors.”

Beelzebub glared at her. “You take that back,” they snarled, though there was no real force behind it. “I’m  _ not  _ helping the humanszzz, and neither are my lovely flies.”

“Maybe not on purpose,” she said with a smug grin as she grabbed the whiskey bottle back, trying to ignore how warm Beelzebub’s fingers were as they briefly touched.

Beelzebub crossed their scrawny arms — almost comical in the gray uniform coat — and let out a huff of air that clung around them in the frigid night.

“All seems stupid, doesn’t it?” they said after a long moment, their eyes trained on the wounded soldier. “The way they squabble and fight for no reason. Makes you wonder if they were ever worth all the trouble.”

Michael froze. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said stiffly. “They’re God’s creations. Everything the Lord makes is worthwhile.”

Beelzebub scoffed. “They’re fighting over szzzlavery, and you want to defend them? Heaven never changes, doeszzz it?”

“Perfection doesn’t need to change.”

Why did it sound so false to her own ears?

And Beelzebub, of course, called her out on it.

“If Heaven waszzz perfect, how could any of uszzzz have Fallen?” they challenged. “If your preciouszzz  _ Lord’s _ creations are so  _ worthwhile, _ how could She have caszzzt us out?”

Michael remained silent. Her silence spoke volumes.

The Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies, smirked.

“What’szzzz wrong, Michael?” they goaded. “Cat got your tongue?”

She took a drink from the bottle still in her hand. The alcohol made her feel warm, and her head was beginning to feel light and floaty. Maybe drinking with a demon was a mistake. She handed the bottle back.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” she said at last. “You’ll not lead me to doubt in our Holy Lord.”

“No, I don’t imagine szzzo,” they conceded easily. “You don’t need  _ me _ to cause you to have your doubts.”

“Angels don’t doubt the Lord and Her Great Plan,” she said, because that, at least, was true. Angels did not doubt, and she was an angel.

(Angels also didn’t drink whiskey with demons, but she wasn’t going to think too much on  _ that.) _

Beelzebub threw their head back, taking a long pull from the whiskey bottle, less than a quarter full now.

“Doeszzzzn’t matter,” they rasped, whiskey spilling from their lips down their chin, glistening in the low night light. “It’szzz all gonna end the same way. Blood and battle. Alwayszzz doeszzz with  _ Her _ creationszzz.”

The flies buzzing around them seemed more agitated. Beelzebub waved their hand, batting them lightly. “Pipe  _ down,” _ they said, irritably. “Don’t you lot have some bodies to tend to?”

The flies did, indeed, quiet, several flying off in search of decaying flesh.

Michael wasn’t sure what to say, so she opted to say nothing, just stare at the demon, and think about how the war between their sides was drawing ever closer.

“Have you seen how they depict Adam and Eve?” Beelzebub asked suddenly, those piercing blue eyes seeming to bore straight through to her very celestial essence. “Pale and blonde. Nothing like how they looked. Looked more like the people they keep as szzzlaves. Humanity was a mistake. You can’t convinczzze me otherwiszzze.

Michael tried not to react, though the demon’s words felt like ice water being dumped on her head. It brought back her thoughts, just earlier this very night, about free will and mistakes and Holy Intentions.

Dangerous thoughts. Do not approach. Turn around.

Beelzebub sighed. “Szzzo much for a friendly converszzzation.” They took a step nearer to Michael, bringing their bodies close together. So close that Michael could feel the heat roll off of them, feel the hot tickle of their breath on her face. Without warning, the demon grabbed Michael’s hand and wrapped her fingers around the whiskey bottle.

“Seemszzz like you need thiszzz more than I do,” they said quietly, their boney fingers so surprisingly soft and warm on her hand.

For just a second, the world stood still.

And then the second was over, and Beelzebub drew back, taking their softness and warmth with them, and leaving the cold to wash back over Michael.

“I’m sure I’ll szzzee you again szzzoon, Archangel,” the demon said, turning their back on her and waving without looking back.

Then they sank into the ground and disappeared, and Michael was alone, surrounded by the aftermath of war with an almost empty bottle of whiskey clutched in her fist.

_ It was just a temptation,  _ she told herself, staring at the spot where the Prince of Hell had descended back down Below.  _ They’re trying to lead me astray. Cause me to doubt. Cause me to  _ Fall.

But it hadn’t  _ felt _ like that. It had felt so… genuine. A meeting of minds. A philosophical discussion. No heat. No force. Just… a friendly conversation, as they’d put it.

Michael glanced down at the bottle. She  _ could _ return what was left to the surgeon, allow it to supply some modicum of relief to some injured boy. That would surely be the  _ right _ thing to do, the  _ angelic _ thing to do. But instead, she lifted it to her lips and drained it in one go.

She forced herself to walk away, physically and symbolically, from where their conversation had taken place. There were still soldiers hurting around her, children she could help, even in some small way. She made her way to another of the wounded, knelt beside him and waited until she saw the faint blue glow of his wounds that were a sign that everything was going to be alright.

She didn’t know how her healing influence would affect the soldiers she helped. Maybe some would take their brush with death as a sign that something had to change. Maybe some would take it as reassurance that they were on the right path. She didn’t know. She couldn’t do any more than what she was doing, and even that was toeing the line of what they were allowed to do these days. As the humans evolved, they’d been forced to pull back, be less overt, more subtle in their Heavenly guidance. And even then, the humans could choose to ignore them, forge their own stubborn paths.

Try though she did, she could not keep one nagging thought from slipping into her brain.

_ Maybe free will was a mistake. _

**Author's Note:**

> If I ever mention Raphael in a fic, I invite you to imagine Maya Rudolph. That’s who I’m picturing.
> 
> This fic was partially written for my dearest fiancée, who loves Michael/Beelzebub. Let’s be real, it’s an amazing and entirely underrated ship! Hopefully more people start writing for it, but in the meantime, I guess her and I will have to do the heavy lifting!


End file.
